February a Good Month for Sotheby's and Christie's

Kelly Crow has a good, yet short article in the Wall Street Journal on the recent sales at Sotehby's and Chrisite's. She reports the two major houses saw recent sales from February Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales total nearly $577 million. This is still below the $964 million of February 2008, but a great improvement over February 2009 which saw only $234 million. There are signs of strength and also opportunity in the fine art market. Not every artist has rebounded, but there is enough positive results for future optimism.

Crow reports

Prices haven't rebounded for every artist: Mr. Ruscha's "Nerve" sold Wednesday at Sotheby's for $433,250, less than its asking price, and other works by Neo Rauch, Juan Muñoz, and Lucian Freud went unsold.

But the successful totals underscore the strengthening state of the market. Breakouts included Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, who last year built a giant set of high heels from kitchen pots, "Marilyn," that sold last night at Christie's for $791,222, over three times its high estimate.

Sotheby's led this round by selling $365.4 million worth of art—including a $6.2 million Willem de Kooning abstract, "Untitled XIV," and a $5.1 million Yves Klein blowtorch painting, "F 88," at its $84.7 million Wednesday-evening sale.

Christie's has so far brought in $211.4 million from its sales, and it aims to bring in an additional $13.2 million from its day-long sale of lower-priced contemporary works on Friday.

To read the full WSJ article, click HERE.